City University of New York (CUNY) Researchers Publish New Studies and Findings in the Area of Environmental Research and Public Health (How Phantom Networks, Provider Qualities, and Poverty Sway Medicaid Dental Care Access: A Geospatial …): Environmental Health – Environmental Research and Public Health

2021 DEC 23 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Investigators publish new report on environmental research and public health. According to news reporting out of City University of New York (CUNY) by NewsRx editors, research stated, “Access to general dental care is essential for preventing and treating oral diseases. To ensure adequate spatial accessibility for the most vulnerable populations, New York State mandates a ratio of one general dentist to 2000 Medicaid recipients within 30 min of public transportation.”

The news editors obtained a quote from the research from City University of New York (CUNY): “This study employed geospatial methods to determine whether the requirement is met in Manhattan by verifying the online directories of ten New York managed care organizations (MCOs), which collectively presented 868 available dentists from 259 facilities. Our survey of 118 dental facilities representing 509 dentists revealed that significantly fewer dentists are available to treat Medicaid recipients compared to MCO directories. The average dentist-to-patient ratio derived from the MCO listings by the Two-Step Floating Catchment Area (2SFCA) method was 1:315, while the average verified ratio was only 1:1927. ‘Phantom networks’, or inaccurate provider listings, substantially overstated Medicaid dental accessibility. Surprisingly, our study also discovered additional Medicaid providers unlisted in any MCO directory, which we coined ‘hidden networks’. However, their inclusion was inconsequential to the overall dental supply. We further scrutinized dental care access by uniquely applying six ‘patient-centered characteristics’, and these criteria vastly reduced accessibility to an average ratio of merely 1:4587.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Our novel evaluation of the spatial association between poverty, dental care access, and phantom networks suggests that Medicaid dental providers wish to be located in wealthier census tracts that are in proximity to impoverished areas for maximum profitability. Additionally, we discovered that poverty and phantom networks were positively correlated, and phantom providers masked a lack of dental care access for Medicaid recipients.”

For more information on this research see: How Phantom Networks, Provider Qualities, and Poverty Sway Medicaid Dental Care Access: A Geospatial Analysis of Manhattan. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2021,18(12383):12383. (International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health - http://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph). The publisher for International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is MDPI AG.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182312383.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Destiny Kelley, Department of Geography and Environmental Science, Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY), 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065, USA. Additional authors for this research include Shipeng Sun.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)